Introduction

Abstract

The European crisis, which began as a financial, then economic and social crisis, is now a political and constitutional one as well. In some countries constitutions are already dead letter at the economic and social levels, and within the superstructure of the European Union, cohesion is thus endangered. The crisis has placed all other issues out of the spotlight. The very question of the European Constitution is invoked only timidly before the imperative of immediate action, and the average European citizen is confronted with bad news everyday since social unrest in Greece or Spain is equally disconcerting for the Germans, the English, or the French—we are all in the same boat: prosperity or ruin is our common fate. It is only a matter of time. There hasn’t been much debate on the European constitutional arrangement in these times when we are practically at war and our energies are spent trying to do triage on immediate emergencies.